The following subject might contains a bit of a boring topic. If you’re not familiar with the Bogdanovs, pass your way. Or not
It’s not fresh news but I had step into the subject by chance yesterday reading some papers in the internet. The Bogdanov affair is probably one of the most controversial scientific topic I’ve read. Everything started within a series of theoretical physics papers written by French twin brothers Igor and Grichka Bogdanov. I’ve been a huge fan of the borthers since my early teens. I first heard them speak about mathematics and physics on radio, relating the delicate subject of the border between science and science fiction. I read their numerous books which are not so easy but ment to be for a large audience. The last I’ve read was titled “Before the Big bang”. Those guys tried to explain what happens a couple billions of seconds before the big bang, and how was the universe topologically and physically designed in this “time”. (I quoted time because during this “moment” time doesn’t exist). The book was great yet dedicated for some serious holidays reading. The controversy started in 2002 when rumors spread on Usenet newsgroups that the work was a deliberate hoax targeting the physics community. While the Bogdanovs defend the veracity of their work, many physicists have alleged that the papers are nonsense. Now you have to understand that their papers are so complex that there is not so many people capable of understanding only a few. I ‘ve read it myself and honestly it took me 3 or 4 minutes to just comprehend the title: Topological theory of the initial singularity of spacetime.The Bogdanov brothers both studied applied mathematics in Paris, but then in the early 1980s began a career in television, producing a show entitled Temps X (Time X). This programme, which covered topics in popularized science and science fiction, earned them a considerable amount of celebrity. Temps X continued for ten years and was followed by other shows in the same genre. In 1993, the brothers began work toward doctorates. A reporter noted that the back cover of the Bogdanovs’ 1991 book Dieu et la Science (God and Science) claimed that the brothers held scientific doctorates when they did not. This book provoked a dispute of its own in 1992, when University of Virginia astronomy professor Trinh X. Thuan accused the Bogdanovs of plagiarizing his book The Secret Melody: And Man Created the Universe (eventually published in English translation in 1995). After a legal battle in France, Thuan and the Bogdanovs settled out of court, and the Bogdanovs later denied all wrongdoing. Thuan suggested that the plagiarism suit pressed the brothers to obtain doctorates as fast as possible.
In 1999 and 2002 respectively, Grichka and Igor Bogdanov obtained Ph.D. degrees on the basis of two theses (Grichka in mathematics and Igor in theoretical physics) from the University of Bourgogne. In 1999 Grichka Bogdanov received the rare low passing grade of “honorable” for his thesis Quantum fluctuations of the signature of the metric at the Planck scale. On the same day, Igor Bogdanov failed the defense of his thesis Topological Origin of Inertia. His advisor subsequently agreed to allow him to obtain a doctorate if Igor could publish three peer-reviewed journal articles. After publishing the requisite articles, Igor successfully defended his thesis three years later on a different topic. His new thesis, Topological State of Spacetime at the Planck Scale, also received the same low passing grade of “honorable”. As far as I know this grade is the lowest and it is extremly rare to fail on a thesis (1 over 1000). In justifying the conferring of doctoral degrees to the Bogdanovs, a referee told the Times, “These guys worked for 10 years without pay. They have the right to have their work recognized with a diploma, which is nothing much these days.” This quote made me laugh I have to say :D
The two brothers published a total of six papers in physics and mathematics journals, including Annals of Physics and Classical and Quantum Gravity, which are both reviewed by referees. After reading the abstracts of both theses, German physicist Max Niedermaier concluded that the papers were pseudoscientific, consisting of dense technical jargon written to sound scientific without having real content. This verbal wrangle soon attracted worldwide attention, both in the physics community and in the international popular press. After the start of the Usenet discussion, most comments were critical of the Bogdanovs’ work. For example, one stated that the Bogdanov papers are “a mishmash of superficially plausible sentences containing the right buzzwords in approximately the right order. There is no logic or cohesion in what they write.” Another voiced a similar opinion, proclaiming “The Bogdanov’s papers consist of buzzwords from various fields of mathematical physics, string theory and quantum gravity, strung together into syntactically correct, but semantically meaningless prose.”
Now all that got me thinking of what I’ve read and heard. If all this was a hoax indeed ? If all they ever say was a soup of their thought never based on any true facts ? Now I feel like being ‘brain raped’ (allow me the expression) during all these years :( I guess they are probably jokers in the high level but can still explain big theory to the masses. The scandal made me see them a different way that I used to. I was drinking their words and I shouldn’t. Now I’m thinking: Is there anyone on earth you can trust and learn from ?
